Former Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong, who was appointed to the job in 2021 by then-mayor Libby Schaaf, faced another major legal setback after a state judge tossed out his lawsuit against Oakland last week.

Armstrong sued Oakland last year, alleging the city and then-Mayor Sheng Thao fired him in February 2023 in retaliation for speaking out against Robert Warshaw, the federal monitor who oversees the police department. Armstrong’s lawsuit also accused Thao of violating his First Amendment rights. A federal judge dismissed Armstrong’s First Amendment claims last November and sent the remainder of the claims to state court to decide whether the city’s leaders violated labor laws.

California Superior Court Judge Peter Borkon threw out the rest of Armstrong’s case on Oct. 16 after the city objected to it through a demurrer.

Borkon wrote in his ruling that Armstrong’s complaints against the city “do not rise to the level of whistleblower violations for two reasons.”

First, the judge wrote, Armstrong’s claim of whistleblower retaliation relied entirely on an alleged Jan. 19, 2023, conversation between Armstrong, Thao, and then-City Administrator Ed Reiskin. However, Armstrong’s lawsuit failed to “clearly allege” what was said during this discussion. 

Second, Armstrong accused OPD’s federal monitor, Rober Warshaw, of fraud, but the lawsuit “fails to include any details” that explain how a fraud was committed. The other laws Armstrong accused Warshaw of violating are state laws, which don’t apply to federal court monitors, Borkon wrote.

Borkon’s order said Armstrong “does not provide facts demonstrating an objectively reasonable belief that Warshaw was issuing ‘false reports regarding the OPD and Chief Armstrong in order to continue to personally receive tax payer money,’” as Armstrong had claimed in his suit.

Borkon gave Armstrong an opportunity to update his lawsuit and refile within 10 days. 

Armstrong’s attorney did not immediately respond to questions from The Oaklandside about the case. 

Oakland City Attorney Ryan Richardson declined to comment.

Armstrong faced criticism over his handling of a sergeant’s misconduct

Armstrong was appointed chief of the Oakland police in February 2021, during Schaaf’s second term as mayor. Two years later, Thao, who had just been sworn in as mayor, took the extraordinary step of placing Armstrong on administrative leave while she considered how to respond to the findings of a report commissioned by the city that was highly critical of the police chief.

The report summarized an investigation by a law firm that was tasked by the city with looking into two police misconduct cases involving an OPD sergeant. The sergeant had committed a hit-and-run in the parking garage of his San Francisco apartment building in 2021. Later, in a bizarre incident, the same officer discharged his gun inside an OPD elevator and threw the shell casing off the Bay Bridge.

The investigation found that OPD leaders did not properly investigate the sergeant’s actions or properly discipline him. Armstrong “failed to hold his subordinate officers to account,” the attorneys concluded, and he failed “to engage effectively in the review of the incident” — a reference to the hit-and-run — “allowing the subject officer to escape responsibility for serious misconduct.” The investigators recommended that Armstrong be suspended for 30 days.

Some community members rallied around Armstrong in early 2023 while he was on leave, demanding that he be reinstated. At the same time, Armstrong lashed out at Warshaw, the Oakland Police Department’s federal monitor, accusing him of corruptly manufacturing the crisis in order to prevent OPD from getting out from under federal court oversight.

Warshaw oversees OPD’s compliance with a reform program the city agreed to in 2003 to settle the “Riders” case, a civil rights lawsuit which alleged that a group of officers beat up suspects, planted drugs on them, and lied on police reports. Warshaw reports to a federal judge and is paid for his work by the city.

Thao fired Armstrong several weeks after he accused Warshaw of corruption. Her firing of the chief was a decision separate from the 30-day suspension he was facing.

In September 2023, a neutral hearing officer reviewed the external investigation of the OPD sergeant’s misconduct and the 30-day suspension Armstrong faced and largely sided with Armstrong. The hearing officer recommended in her 55-page report that the city consider reversing Armstrong’s suspension and wiping the record from his personnel file, as well as meeting with Armstrong to resolve the dispute over his termination.

The hearing officer felt it was unrealistic to have expected Armstrong to have read the internal affairs reports at the center of the case involving the sergeant and concluded that “nothing in the [law firm’s report] supports a conclusion that the Chief failed to hold any other OPD officers to the standards, policies and rules of the Department.”

However, the hearing officer didn’t weigh in on whether or not Armstrong should be reinstated as chief.

Thao and the city took no action on the hearing officer’s report as it was only a recommendation, not a binding outcome.

The Police Commission found Armstrong had another oversight failure

In November 2024, a federal judge dismissed Armstrong’s claims that his right to free speech had been violated when he was fired. Judge Trina Thompson wrote in her ruling that elected officials like the mayor need to be able to make personnel decisions that further the policy platform they were elected to carry out.

“By criticizing the Federal Monitor, with ‘extensive’ news coverage of those criticisms, and stating that the Federal Monitor was attempting to ‘extend his lucrative monitoring contract,’ Armstrong was undermining the ability of Mayor Thao’s administration to work with the monitor assigned by the Court to oversee OPD,” Thompson wrote in her decision. 

Thompson sent the remaining labor law claims in Armstrong’s lawsuit to a state court to decide.

Of Armstrong’s claims that Warshaw manufactured a crisis in order to sustain his paid role as OPD’s monitor, Borkon, the superior court judge, wrote that they were “speculative” and failed to meet “objective standards” of the whistleblower statute in state labor laws.

In addition to reinstatement as police chief, Armstrong sought economic damages, punitive damages to be paid by Thao, money for emotional distress, attorneys fees, and other compensation for his firing.

Last year, before the federal judge’s decision in his lawsuit, Armstrong faced more criticism after details of a separate investigation into OPD’s handling of allegations surrounding a homicide investigator became public. OPD detective Phong Tran was accused of bribing a witness and committing perjury to send two men to prison. The Oakland Police Commission’s civilian investigative agency concluded that Armstrong had failed to ensure OPD’s internal affairs division properly handled the Tran case. They recommended that Armstrong face a short suspension if he were ever reinstated as chief.

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